#Harrowgate

[stutterhug]

My most recent double page Tooth and Claw spread for the Pheonix Comic 💖🧡

ALSO I am at Thought Bubble this weekend! Come and find me at the Pheonix table on Sunday and loitering about buying too many comics on Saturday most likely!

[tomoleary]

Edward Higgins (1877-1933) Harrowgate

Source

[linovadraws]

Beloved! Beloathed!

[fallloverfic]

THE DOCTRINE OF LABYRINTHS BY SARAH MONETTE/KATHERINE ADDISON IS BACK IN EBOOKS IN FULL!!!!

All four books released same day, July 11, 2023! They're now under the Katherine Addison name and the covers are new! You can order them now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Google, and Kobo!!!

English audiobooks, narrated by Shawn K. Jain, have also begun release:

Melusine is out!

The Virtu: October 22nd, 2024

The Mirador: February 11th, 2025

Corambis: April 8th, 2025

[little-mouse-adventures]

Character asks: Maia - 12; Felix Harrowgate - 31; Butler - 17 and 35 please :D

12. Crack headcanon (Maia)

Boy's tall. Idk if that's canon or not, or how much of a crack headcanon it is, but like. His grandfather apparently towered over everyone, and I think it would be funny if Maia also becomes incredibly tall and no one really notices. He's still very quiet and polite and shy, so he just kind of looks like an awkward and adorable beanpole and no one thinks much of it. And then one day he goes full Edrahasivar VII and just dominates the entire room. Suddenly everyone is very aware that their Emperor is at Hozier-levels of tallness, and can very easily look down on damn near anyone he pleases. (After Maia is done putting the fear of the gods into whomever irritated him, he looks around and everyone is staring at him wide-eyed, suddenly remembering that this is the Emperor and not just some stand-in, and Maia has no idea how to react except to very politely ask Csevet to fetch everyone some calming tea)

31. If the had a tumblr what would it look like? (Felix Harrowgate)

Oh god. At first, before the events of the series, it's a collection of holier-than-thou vagueposts and long essays about obscure magical texts, and some length arguments about how wrong some of those texts are. Occasional vanity selfies, the kind where he pretends it wasn't a selfie and was just a casual picture someone happened to take of his best angle, while he was wearing his best jacket and had his hair just so.

Then shit goes down for him, and while he doesn't use tumblr much during his bout of madness, the few times he does it's to post borderline incomprehensible ramblings about the animal heads around him and what that means and the fantome in the tower and other such things, that those who followed him are all like. "Uh. you good, bro?" (he doesn't answer and disappears for another three months before his next post about the ghosts in the maze).

After the Troia adventure, there's a lot of the same kind of long-winded magical essays and arguments, but now they've shifted from being obscure topics to being slightly taboo topics. Lots of aesthetic pictures where he wonders if anyone else can see the ghosts or the noirance, and people start to think he's trolling.

In exile, again, long bout of ghosting. When he starts posting again, it consists of a lot of aesthetic pics of foxes and the Corambis countryside. There's yet more magical essays (he cannot shut up for the life of him) but they're not nearly as aggressive now, and seem more like someone wanting to share cool information rather than prove how much better and smarter he is than everyone else.

He's blocked anything to do with rubies.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them (Butler)

Honestly it really depends on what AU/ fic I'm fixating on. There's not really a hard-and-fast "oh yes this is The Blorbo through-and-through!" thing for him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

35. Their idea of a perfect day (Butler)

April 25, not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket

Sorry. Anyways. Early morning, bit of time to himself to enjoy his coffee while he makes plans for the day. Bit of work to keep the mind occupied, interspersed with some cooking or gardening (or both, getting veggies from the garden to cook with). Someone decides to fuck around with his Principal in the afternoon, so he has a chance to be threatening and punch someone and generally engage in his dramatic side, but nothing that involves actual physical harm to his charge or himself. Then some meditation to calm down, and a chance to read his book before bed.

[kazzle-dazzle-em]

“I really think if he’d thought he could get me to go along with it, he would’ve challenged me to a duel. But I ain’t a gentleman, and duels are just fancy knife fights and just as fucking stupid.”

-Mildmay, Corambis

[not-poignant]

I think it will come as no surprise to anyone that I love gremlin man Astarion (also known as vampire Dorian Pavus no I'll be accepting no constructive criticism at this time) and think about ways to fic him all the time.

It cracks me up that like, Reddit threads are a mix of 'I kill him ASAP' 'I never take him anywhere' and then folks like me who are like 'he's always on my party I would die for him.'

Also it's really not that hard to play a hero, save everyone, have him in your party 24/7 and keep his approval up you just gotta be willing to trick a whole bunch of villains into killing themselves through wordplay and you're golden dsalkjfsa

[leyside]

We need Felix Harrowgate but a lesbian

[guy60660]

Harrowgate Tea Room

[veliseraptor]

Relevant to a recent post, I have started reading Doctrine of Labyrinths because of you! I just finished book two and I am staggered by how much this series appeals to my id.

went fishing through my pictures folder for way too long specifically to find this image that I knew I had already created

doctrine of labyrinths is deeply precious to me. reading it as a depressed thirteen year old changed me irrevocably. not sure if it was for the better or not but it certainly did something to my brain chemistry

[just-eyeballs]

I started reading Doctrine of Labyrinths after seeing it mentioned in the TLT sub and here are my thoughts so far:

Overall the vibe is “dark 90s yaoi” (over-the-top Bad Ex Boyfriend with huge hands and all)

Wow, this book has a Harrow and a Gideon AND an Ianthe…?

Wow, this was just re-released for ebook LAST MONTH?

The Tumblr fandom for this is much larger than I expected, how have I never heard of this before?

When will the suffering END?

I need to read this entire thing as quickly as possible and then probably twice.

[the-squeaky-junk-drawer]

OK, so I've had a realization...

...and I kind of hate it. So, I'm rereading the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, and I'm partway through The Virtu, and I've noticed some things that I somehow didn't the first few times I read it.

I've always imagined it as a sort of generic sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting, kind of like Game of Thrones, or whatever. Melusine is very French-influenced (centimes are a unit of money, the days sound like bastardizations of French days of the week, the name of the main river the "Sim" sounds sort of similar to the "Seine" when said aloud, etc.), but in my head all the Lower City inhabitants sound like Dickensian toughs (basically a Cockney accent, or what have you). They mention a country/region called Norvena, which, from the physical description of its inhabitants sounds kind of Scandinavian (lots of tall blonds). All the names in Troia sound very Greek, as do all the city names. The fall of the ancient cities sound like the fall of Rome, or Babylon, or something. The crew of the ship Morskaiakrov are from the Merrows, which is clearly eastern European (names like Piotr, and Ilya, and things like that; "Morskaiakrov" is literally a Russian word that means "sea blood"). All sort of European-sounding things. But throughout the books, they (specifically Mildmay) makes mention of some peculiar things, considering the European-heavy descriptions otherwise. Specifically -

swamps

rattlesnakes & cottonmouths

"gators"

buffalo

BARBECUE SAUCE

...and I had a horrific thought. Are they...American??!? As in, are they in North America??? Maybe Canada? Are "the Duchies" the States?? And the French-influence of Melusine is, like, Quebecois? Does Mildmay...sound like a redneck? Because all his I-ain't-this and it-don't-mean-nothing-that can, in theory, work with a Cockney accent, but...it can also work with a twang from the Tennessee mountains. Which is where the author grew up, according to the bio in the back of the book. He doesn't go so far as "y'all", thank goodness. EDIT: He even says "y'all" at one point (repeatedly, about 4 times in 2 or 3 pages). But it just makes more sense to me that, when Felix's "old voice" from Simside comes out in times of stress, he goes from sounding plummy to sounding like a Dickensian gutter-rat.

I don't know what to do with this information. And I kind of hate it. I can't get twangy-Mildmay out of my head, and I want to go back to the Cockney cat-burglar I fell for when I was 14. Help.

[cyril-depaul]

not only would cyril depaul and felix harrowgate fucking each other make them worse, they would also be weirdly sexually compatible

[linovadraws]

I think about this conversation from Corambis chapter 7 constantly and was sad that I never finished the more detailed version I had planned, so I repurposed it into a cute little experiment.

Please enjoy this bonus Felix face from the first draft. He is my favorite.

[fallloverfic]

The Virtu, book 2 of Doctrine of Labyrinths by Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison, narrated by Shawn K. Jain in English, was released as an audiobook today! It's on Kobo, Audible, and iOS, among others. Mélusine was released in August.

Future audiobook releases:

The Mirador: February 11th, 2025

Corambis: April 8th, 2025

The quadrilogy is also fully available as English ebooks.

[wiltking]

can I have some dark fantasy recommendations 😯 content warnings are appreciated just to know what im getting into, but not a deterrent for me!

i have some go-tos that i always rec but i'll throw in some others i haven't talked about as much to shake things up. also all of these are queer.

the hexslinger series by gemma files - horror + dark fantasy. a tragic story following ex-reverend Asher Rook and his sharpshooter lover Chess Pargeter in a wild west world newly rife with black magic + torn apart by the wills of Aztec gods, doomed by the fact that two hexes can never be together without one of them tearing the other apart by the very nature that gives them magic. there is a lot to this series. it can be overwhelming and morose as hell but its also about how Love Is Not A Weakness and that redemption is possible no matter how far you’ve fallen. (cws: gore, rape, time period specific racism and homophobia)

doctrine of labyrinths by sarah monette - dark fantasy + adventure. follows Felix Harrowgate, a prestigious wizard, and Mildmay, a lowly thief as their lives are uprooted and thrown into an adventure neither of them are prepared to undertake. really enjoyed this series overall. book 3 didn't really work for me but it ended strong with book 4 and stuck with me as a positive experience. its probably the least 'dark' on this list, comparatively. i mostly treasure it for having an extremely messy and flawed gay MC going on an adventure full of grief and rage and painful healing. (cws: rape, csa, incestuous thoughts, suicidal ideation)

the edda of burdens by elizabeth bear - dark fantasy + scifi. always recommend reading in chronological order rather than published order (so start with By the Mountain Bound). essentially about sword-wielding angels of light inspired by norse mythology, and their trials and tribulations spanning thousands of years. Mingan is one of the characters of all time to me and BtMB alone is one of the most dearest and influential books. to me. the writing is visually vivid and stunning. (cws: rape, suicide attempt)

wraeththu by storm constantine - dark fantasy + romance. wraeththu is set in a futuristic apocalyptic world where a hermaphroditic race of people (who all use he/him pronouns) have come into power and eradicated most of humanity. the books follow the lives and struggles of three different wraeththu. this had to have been my first exposure to fiction with weird genitals / sex biology and maybe where my fascination with it can be tied back to. pretty depressing and meandering read overall and my biggest criticisms are that book 2 can be painfully boring at times, and that "correct" androgyny is often reduced to "pale + skinny". its also an older work and not at all trans-inclusive. but if you approach it as if its doing its own thing... it can be interesting. (cws: graphic rape, murder via sex, pedophilia)

the ragged blade by christopher ruz - dark fantasy. this is the story of a tragic, violent man fleeing across the desert with his feral daughter to get away from a murderous magician man he loved, once. It's not healthy, it's not happy, but its extremely unique and well-crafted and i will never not be sad that the rest of this series might never see the light of day because the publisher went under. but even so, very well worth the read on its own. (sadly dont remember if this one needs warnings but i dont think there was anything too crazy)

now for a very questionable rec... the steel remains by richard k. morgan. i have so many issues with this series. the sex sucks. Egar sucks. the last book is absolute dogshit. but Ringil.... oh Ringil. if only the series could have just been about him, and written by someone else. i am pretty much only recommending the first book. maybe the second. but its also terrible to inflict this series on someone when it ends like that. so do with it what you will.